(May 28, 2020 at 3:48 pm)Belacqua Wrote:(May 28, 2020 at 1:42 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: By what method could we do this? How could you rule out a cause you haven’t learned about yet?
Granted, I think that the people opposing me on this thread don't agree that the statement "all questions are answerable by science" can be falsified.
They assume a priori that the only things there are in the world are things that science can analyze. As we've seen, they deny outright the existence of anything else. For them, "it can be analyzed by science" is the equivalent of "it exists."
And that is simply a false characterization of what people are saying.
For example, science has no direct say on morality or aesthetics. It can help *inform* those topics, but it cannot conclude what is moral or beautiful.
Now, my view is that this is because morality aesthetics are a matter of *opinion* and not a matter of *fact*: they are subjective and human-based and not objective things.
Quote:It's a version of Berkeley, I guess. Esse est percipi gets a little update.
To them, their statement is not falsifiable. Therefore it's not science.
Definitions are never falsifiable. They are either useful for further study or they are not.
Quote:But I've already addressed this. To say that by definition everything has a natural explanation, even if we don't know what the explanation will be or could be, is just begging the question. It's assuming something that can't be proved.
Please define what the term 'natural' means and these issues may get resolved. What does it mean to be a 'natural explanation'?
Quote:I'm fine with it, as I say. It may well be true that there is nothing supernatural. Given my own limited experience, I suspect there's no such thing as the supernatural. (Even God, if it existed, would be natural, in the sense that it is and acts only according to its nature.) But as I say the universe is big and science is set up to find certain things and not others. If supernatural stuff were happening all around us, many people would deny it, given their metaphysical commitment against it. My interlocutors on this thread prove that. So the degree to which people are adamant about the non-existence of the supernatural, and offended that someone else might say "maybe," they are committed to an unprovable belief, and lack skepticism.
(It's funny how the word "skepticism" has changed. It used to mean doubtful and demanding more proof. Now it seems to mean "completely certain about the non-existence of certain things.")
Well, I think that if you resolve what you mean by the following terms, things will get easier to analyze:
natural
exists
explanation
I know what my definitions are for these ideas. What are yours?
